Technical Analysis

This task is really for you to demonstrate where you are getting your idea from. A good music video will usually have one simple but effective concept behind it. It’s that one concept you are looking for now… it could be the concept of repetition – your performer keeps repeating a simple action again and again with subtle variations; it could be the concept of playing with time – your performer performs the track at ¼ speed when recording, then you speed it up to match the track speed in Final Cut and everything around your performer looks like it’s going super-fast; it could be the concept of direction – there is a constant forward, backward or sideways camera tracking throughout the whole video; or it could just be a costume theme – your performers dress as vampires/doctors/priests/mechanics/anything!

You should look at one or two videos and analyse how they were technically constructed, then design your video in the same way. It might be using similar camerawork, similar editing style, similar mise en scene or a combination of all of them.

For example, all music videos cut to the beat, but the concept of these two videos is to cut on EVERY beat:

Chikinki - Assassinator N13

White Stripes - The Hardest Button to Button

Looking closely at the camerawork in the Chikini video, you can see that in the whole video there are around 12 different static (camera doesn’t move) shots. For each of these shots at least two costume and mise en scene variations have been made. The shots include:

·         Long Shot –lead singer, guitarist, drummer, and the whole band

·         Medium Long Shot – lead singer, keyboards

·         Mid shot – lead singer, whole band

·         Medium Close Up – lead singer

·         Close Up – lead singer, guitar

·         Big Close Up – lead singer.

Notice there are no extreme long shots, there rarely are in any music videos. The camera is static throughout the video because matching camera moves between costume changes would have been extremely complex. The concept works through placing the performers in exactly the same positions between costume changes, but making subtle variations to the mise en scene such as switching the positions of the glasses of liquid on the table next to the lead singer or changing the painting hanging behind the keyboard player or having the guitarist ‘playing’ a tennis racquet.

This is an excellent concept for a student music video because it is very achievable with the technology you have available to you – but bear this in mind, if there are 12 shots and at least 2 costume changes for each, that means the performers will have performed the entire song at least 24 times – probably many more times – in order to make this video.  

There is no right or wrong way to go about this technical analysis. You must simply focus on some technical aspect which a) you feel is important to the concept of the video and b) is going to influence your video in some way.